-Our next guest is a talented actor who you know from
films such as "Mudbound," "Chappaquiddick,"
and "Zero Dark Thirty."
You can catch him in the highly anticipated series
"Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty,"
premiering March 6th on HBO and streaming on HBO Max.
Let's take a look.
-You know what?
Cooke sent me out there to be his star, too.
Got me to sell his tickets,
and every year, when we lost, he still cashed his checks,
but I'm the one that's got to live with it.
I'm the one that's got to have the nightmares
with these Boston Irish mother[bleep]
running the floor.
-The always-hustling, always-chasing Jerry West
with a final tally that was heartbreaking.
-Do you think I like that?
-A series that could have truly gone either way.
-I can still smell the halitosis.
Do you have any idea what that's like?
-Please welcome back to the show
Jason Clarke, everybody!
[ Cheers and applause ] ♪♪
Welcome back, Jason.
-I tell you what, I'm keeping up
the sartorial standard here on the show, aren't I?
-I mean, you're setting a way higher bar than the rest of us.
-No, I saw Oliver out there.
I should have come '90s Australian plumber,
and I did '70s Italian industrialist.
-Yeah, there's, like, a shipping-magnate vibe to you.
It's really nice.
-Cashmere socks, Seth. -Really?
-Yeah. -Cashmere socks?
You didn't get the memo that we're slummin' it these days.
-No, I know.
I should have put the Blundstones on and the RMs, eh?
-You -- I want to ask, because, one of the most fun parts,
I would imagine, about playing this era Jerry West
on the show is the sort of sartorial choices
he made in the '80s.
It's a fun -- The look of this show
is sort of all the joyful colors of that.
This is -- That's real Jerry West.
They really -- You did a good job there.
-No, they did.
They bought -- Because he was into Missoni sweaters,
and they bought these beautiful Missoni knits off of eBay,
you know, resellers that were original from the period.
It was -- I mean, everyone had their style.
Big, white feather coats going on.
I mean, it's Magic mother[bleep] Johnson.
-Yeah.
And it's a fantastic cast.
Did you know much -- I mean, obviously,
you grew up in Australia.
Did you know much about the '80s Lakers?
Do you ever go to the Lakers games now?
-Yeah, I went last night with John Reilly.
-Alright, look at that. -Yeah.
-John C. Reilly, who's fantastic in this.
-Yeah. Gets a lot of love, John. He really does.
-Yeah, he's -- Yeah. -He gets a lot of love.
It was funny, because it was a bad --
The lakers played terribly.
I mean, terribly. Mike Tyson left at halftime.
-Yeah.
-And it was -- Because I was there with John
and, you know, young Quincy, who's playing Magic,
and DeVaughn, who's Norm Nixon's son.
And they got their butts kicked.
-Yeah. That's not good. You guys are a jinx.
-But, you know, the biggest thing I knew was
when Magic was diagnosed HIV-positive,
which is where our show kind of ends,
in the flashback at the beginning.
And then he played in Barcelona at the Olympics.
-Yeah.
-And in Australia, we had these ads with the Grim Reaper
for AIDS bowling the ball down, and, you know,
it was very doom and gloom, and maybe rightly so.
But there he was, you know, 6'10" of him
playing, you know, with the Dream Team,
and everyone was playing with him, you know?
And he was living with it.
And it was like, "Oh, wow.
There's another world out there, as well,"
which is -- You know, it was one of those things that,
even in Australia, little, old country boy
from Australia went, "Look at this dude, man.
Look at him."
-And you were really a country boy from Australia.
Your dad was a sheep shearer. Is that --
-Yes, he was. Yeah.
-That sounds like the punch line of a joke about somebody.
Did he think that acting was a noble profession?
Like, how does somebody -- [ Laughter ]
-I was the butt of a lot of jokes in my
wider-ranging family for a long time.
-Yeah. Like, how did you even approach to him
that this was going to be a path you wanted your life to take?
-You know, it was kind of like --
I mean, my dad is the loveliest, gentlest man,
who had a very rough upbringing.
He just didn't know that it was a path.
-Yeah.
-He didn't know that it was a profession.
You know, it was like -- I was doing an interview with --
The shows are very different.
I mean, you know, Australian interview the other day
was saying, "Oh, you're playing Jerry West."
You know, and all the other guys,
the Americans on the panel, are going,
"Wow, you know, Jerry --"
And, "You look like Frankie J. Holden."
And nobody would know who Frankie J. Holden is.
He's this Australian actor from the '70s.
But it's always taking it back to that small time,
"How does this relate to Australia?"
So, my father had no idea, you know, that being an actor
was a profession and it's something you could do.
-Like, once you took that path and once you sort of met
with some success, was he happy for you?
Was he excited? -Yeah.
He's a big golfer, and I've gotten him onto some
golf courses, yeah.
-Oh, there you go.
So it's a real quid pro quo situation, yeah.
-No, it was, because Jerry West was
a big golfer, as well.
He actually held the back-nine record, I think, at Bel-Air.
And the pictures that my father loved the best,
when I'd send him, you know,
was in the '80s golf gear, you know?
I mean, the colors were just magnificent.
The tight, checked pants.
You know, the white shoes and the socks,
I mean, and, you know, the big, gold watches,
and the ring, of course, his one ring.
-And you also -- I should note, there are some flashbacks,
and you got to play Jerry West the basketball player,
not the executive.
-In the tight shorts.
-Yeah, well, that's my question.
-Yeah. I worked my buns for a long time, dude.
-Yeah. Well, it shows up.
I just want to tip my cap.
You know, the work you put in pays off.
-A bit funny, though, because I have very bandy legs.
My legs are very bowed. -Yeah.
-And it's because my father said he grew up on a horse,
so I must have come out the same way.
Because before he was a shearer,
he was a drover as a young boy.
He had to drive cattle across Australia at like 7 and 8.
-They make you drive cattle at --
-Well, he did. Yeah, it's some tough love.
He got an orange for Christmas, dude.
Between eight of them. I mean, and that's a fact.
He did.
He goes, "We got an orange for Christmas.
There was eight of us."
-I can't believe, by the way --
Like, you can never complain about work to him.
You can't be like, "Oh, my God, we had a 14-hour day on set."
-No. -He's like, "Got that orange."
-But I did send him a picture of me in the gear, you know,
the knitted top and the shorts.
And all him and mum pointed out
and laughed at was my bandy legs.
"Oh, we showed everyone, Jason."
"Well, I said not to show anybody, because --"
They looked at those legs, you know?
Yep. And I thought, "Well, what about my upper torso?
Didn't I look muscly?"
-No. That's -- Parents will often find --
Yeah, well, maybe he's just proud that you
have his bandy legs, and he just went --
-You know what, Seth? I think he is.
I think he is.
I do hope my sons don't have them, though.
-Yeah. Is it too early to tell if your sons have your legs?
Because I know one of my kids has my legs, 100%.
-Does he? -Yeah.
-My youngest has got my hands,
my short, stubbly, working-man hands.
My oldest has got my wife's longer, piano-playing fingers.
-That's so funny.
-But I think we've done a personality swap.
You know what I mean?
One looks like me, but he's his mother,
and one looks like my wife, but he's me.
-That's great.
I feel like that's the most fun possible outcome.
Yeah. We're doing the same thing.
We were talking a little bit about it.
I've got a 5-year-old up on skis.
Your 5-year-old -- also up on skis.
Is he a good skier?
-You know, he did his second time in France.
First, we went to Mammoth.
And he came off the mountain after going up
on the lift, you know, and my wife timed it there
so I'd catch him, you know?
He'd grown like 2 feet higher in pride, you know?
"Papa! Papa!"
Smack! Straight into the thing.
And it's like, "Oh, no!"
"It's okay! I'm okay, Papa." I'm okay!"
My wife's French, so he calls me "Papa,"
which I love, rather than "Dad."
-Oh, that's really good. -Yeah.
But you saddled up for a third, dude.
-Yeah, we got a third. -I feel inadequate.
-I was like -- I wanted to get a third.
[ Cheers and applause ] Thank you. Yeah.
And I'm realizing now,
it's not too late to make her call me "Papa."
The other two, it's lost.
It'd be great to have two that call me "Dad"
and then a little girl who's like, "Papa!"
-Papa, Papa!
-And then I could always be like,
"That's why she gets my attention, you two dopes.
Because she's charming."
-It's true, though, isn't it? -Yeah.
-Yeah, there's something about when your little kid
comes off a mountain and he's taller,
and his pride and he looks at you
and he just wants to let you -- "Did you see that?"
-It's really great.
Yeah, we -- Although, I went down with him on Sunday,
because he can barrel down, and we're working on turns.
And so we went down. -Important.
-Yeah, yeah. -"Dude, come back!
I can't come after you."
-And he was doing his turns, and it was really good.
And I was filming him as he was doing his turn, on the iPhone.
And then I realized, "I'm going to break my neck."
Like, that's -- And he'll always be like,
"This is the first time I did turns,
and that's when Daddy went off the side of the mountain."
-"And that's Daddy going --" Yeah.
And, there, he's going. And he's still going.
He's still -- Yep. Yep, he's still falling.
-He's still falling.
-Somebody will find the phone later on.
-They're like, "Oh, God, this video started so nice,
and then -- Yeah."
Hey, thank you so much for being here.
It's always such a pleasure. Congrats on the show.
-Thank you. -Jason Clarke.
"Winning Time" premieres March 6th
on HBO and streaming on HBO Max.